Educating and Honoring the Whole Child: Logical Consequences

BY: ALICE BERENBAUM

A core component of our school mission is to provide students with learning opportunities to help foster reverence for self, learning, nature, and community. Our goal is to engage all students in a safe learning environment that is meaningful and respectful both academically and social-emotionally. Our team is committed to providing learning opportunities with clear guidelines that help develop students’ academic learning as well as self-regulation

What happens when a student makes a poor choice? It does happen, right? We might strive for perfection, but we are not perfect (thankfully, that would be boring, wouldn’t it?), nor do we expect perfection from our students. The questions then becomes ….

• What do we do when our students do not demonstrate reverence for self, learning, nature, and community?

• How can we provide students with reflective learning experiences that are respectful to the student and helps to develop an internal understanding of the consequences of their actions?

At BCS, we work towards facilitating students’ social emotional growth by using logical consequences, a strategy from Responsive Classroom*, a researched-based approach to teaching and discipline that supports the social and emotional development of students. Logical consequences are a powerful and effective approach that directly relates to the behavior of the student. There is a relationship between the behavior and the consequence It is respectful, relevant, and realistic and helps the student learn strategies for self-regulation and develop an internal understanding of consequences related to their actions. The student is actively engaged in this process and takes accountability for actions while simultaneously learning self-regulation strategies.

We know that behind most behaviors there is a correlating feeling, or a need that requires unpacking for a better understanding Using logical consequences, the adult speaks with the student privately to gather more information about the students’ feelings just prior to the incident. Within this safe and respectful environment, the adult engages the student to identify strategies for self-regulation to support their social-emotional development.

A key point is that the feelings and emotions related to the behavior have been identified, addressed and the student is given an opportunity to express their feelings/emotions and learn and practice self-regulation strategies to prevent a recurrence of this behavior.

Once identified, the adult then engages the student in determining a logical consequence that is related to the behavior. The student takes an active part in the decision-making process to determine a consequence, giving the student the opportunity to take accountability of his/her actions.

Taking a privilege away, having a student take a “time out” in isolation and not identifying the “why” behind the behavior/action does not support positive socialemotional development.

However, the combination of discussing the emotions related to the behavior, providing strategies for learning self-regulation, and understanding there are logical consequences directly related to behavior that mutually decided upon has proven successful for support students’ social emotional growth.

Applying logical consequences provides a growth mindset* learning opportunity for our students to realize they can choose their behaviors and learn from their experiences. It empowers the students to take ownership of their actions.

Growth mindset is not a new or novel approach to approach to reflect upon life experiences as an opportunity to grow. Teaching children to think and learn for themselves by imparting to them the tools of learning align with our school philosophy of returning to the ancient goal of classical education. Aristotle, the great philosopher, reasoned that humans can grow and improve in virtues (aka growth mindset.) in his Nichomachean Ethics.

Our pillars of reverence, based on educating classically and implementing logical consequences, are what bcs is built on – educating and honoring the whole child.

Logical Consequences Resources + Additional Information:

1. Responsive Classroom is a student-centered, social and emotional learning approach to teaching and discipline. For more information, visit " https://www.responsiveclassroom.org.

2 Carol Dwek, psychologist and Professor of Psychology at Stanford University, is known for her work with developing a growth mindset For further information, view her TedTalk at Carol Dweck | Speaker | TED or enjoy her book, Mindset, available on Amazon Dweck, C (2006) Mindset Random House

3 For further reading on Aristotle and Growth Mindset or enjoy Aristotle’s work: The Internet Classics Archive | Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle (mitedu)